“The trust” is the latest Nicolas Cage thriller. Waters and Stone are two nobody police officers working dull administrative jobs and making extra money selling stolen Civil Service Exams to other officers. When Stone hears a story about a heroin dealer quickly beating his extremely high bail, the two friends set into motion a plan to find the origin of such a large amount of cash. Through diligent police work they follow a trail that leads directly to a custom bank-style vault built into the back room freezer of a small grocery store. They put a plan into motion to rob the vault and split whatever they find inside. But by the time they figure out what the vault contains, it’s already too late to turn back. The score was written by Reza Safinia, a very interesting composer who can deliver very dark industrial compositions.

Naturally I should forget all prior ideas when I get into this score as the main theme is a delightful waltz that makes me check once again who wrote the score and remember that a very good composer has a great range of styles he can write in. I smile even wider when I hear “The train” which is joyful and optimistic. Reza Safinia gets the heist sound perfectly and I remember scores like “The Italian Job” as this one enfolds. Afterall this story is about two nobody police officers who decide to rob a vault and the music needs to have comedic or light inserts.

“Bakery” is the first cue where I recognize the composer’s dark side. “Kill time” goes even darker as if suddenly on a summer’s day the clouds blotted every memory of the sun in a few seconds. It’s only a short insert but it chilled me to my bones.

I like the surprises in this score. Thriller compositions sometimes have the tendency to get generic but it’s not the case here. Reza Safinia throws different sound design elements and sharp turns in his cues that make this score captivating to hear. There are a few delightful heist cues that you’ve heard before, sure, but I prefer to focus on pieces like “You haven’t had a lot of coffee today” which sets up a white and insomniac atmosphere that makes me feel like I need coffee. And I never drink coffee. There’s the neurotic and tense “Cracking the vault” with its soft jazzy percussion. There’s the almost Latin sounding “Inside the vault” as the composer makes sure the listener doesn’t get bored. He makes “Interrogation” feel as uncomfortable as one might imagine.

There’s a lot in this half an hour composition. Reza Safinia is an interesting composer who’s not afraid to experiment and makes this score more colorful than you might expect.

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3 Comments

Thank you for this review. I don’t have any qualification to judge film music, I found the movie pretty average but every once in a while there is movie with a score that really captivates me – and this one had it. Enough for me to look it up afterwards and purchase it. Thanks for the review!!